


replace the void of emptiness

by imperialhare



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 17:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperialhare/pseuds/imperialhare
Summary: Samot could put the knife in his back now, but he found that he desperately wanted Samothes to look at him. The desire surprised even himself.au where instead of maelgwyn, samot comes to the forge on high sun day.





	replace the void of emptiness

The forge was hot as ever, and in front of him he could see Samothes bent over the anvil, busy at work. Samot wondered how many times he had gazed upon the same scene in the past, the divine hammer coming down on hot metal, Samothes’ posture all focus and strength. What was he working on? Would he not fight?

It was just the two of them. From somewhere above, Samot could hear the music still playing.

“Samothes.”

“I'm not finished yet.”

There was no danger in the tone of his voice, and Samot immediately knew that he was referring to whatever tool he was forging. Samot could put the knife in his back now, but he found that he desperately wanted Samothes to look at him. The desire surprised even himself.

And so he stood there in the forge and waited.

The minutes passed excruciating, but at last Samothes put down the hammer and cooled the metal, and he turned and stood up straight before Samot.

The tool he had crafted was a sword. Samot almost drew the knife before he realized that Samothes was presenting it to him. It was jewel-bright and glittered beautifully in the light of the volcano - a piece of craftsmanship so elegant and so deeply magical that it could only have been made by the hand of a god.

“A fine blade,” Samot said, cautiously.

“Samot. I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.”

Samot thought about how he'd seen his own appearance recorded faithfully in Samothes’ memory chamber, but he said nothing.

“You've impressed me so many times since you left. I could never have imagined… but it doesn't matter now. You came for a reason.”

“You…” All the bitter words he'd wanted to spit in Samothes’ face died on his tongue. “Even after all this time…”

“Don't use that knife. I made this for you.”

Samot gazed at the holy saber another moment before he took the sword in his hand. He'd never been too fond of wielding a blade, but the weight of it felt good, and the hilt felt right in his grasp. Samothes had always been a sentimental man.

“It should work - to drive back the heat and the dark,” Samothes said.

“So you were able to devise something after all…”

“You have to kill me with it.”

Samot’s eyes snapped upwards. Samothes was smiling, even as he said those words, gazing upon Samot with unbearable fondness in his eyes. “You accept death?”

“To save Hieron… to save Samol - I do.”

“Is that so… Why now? Why not…” Samot trailed off, thinking about all the times Samothes had rebuffed him in the past - before the war, before he'd left the home they had made together. “All those years ago, when you said we were all going to die anyway — why fight this war? Why…”

Samothes smiled again, this time his expression tinged with regret. “I doubted both my own ingenuity and yours. The truth is, I had an epiphany, that there was a way for me to free my power from flesh — do you want me to explain?”

He didn’t, not really — Samot was torn with conflicting emotions. He wanted to drive the sword through Samothes’ chest there and then, so that he could call the deed done — he wanted to hold Samothes again, to tell him that if he had come far enough to admit he was wrong, then they could find a solution together where Samothes didn’t have to die… Samot scowled as tears began to fill his eyes. It was so useless to cry.

“Don’t cry. I’ll cry too,” Samothes said. He reached a hand towards Samot’s face but hesitated, unsure if Samot would allow himself to be touched. Samot inclined his head into Samothes’ palm, but the old familiar feeling of Samothes’ calloused fingers against his skin only made him want to sob harder. “I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry at me.”

“You fool… I came to kill you anyway, you know. I remembered that you’d made plans for your own tomb. How morbid… your mood was so dark, those days.”

“Yes. And it became darker still. It was so hard, to live without you.”

Samot let out a short and bitter bark of a laugh. “You were the one who told me to leave. I wanted… How I longed for you to apologize, to ask for me to come back. I would have, gladly. Right up until I made up my mind to kill you.”

“I know. I didn’t give myself any time to contemplate my regrets. The war was… not a welcome distraction, but a distraction nonetheless from my true feelings. It wasn’t until I heard that you and Maelgwyn were planning to come kill me that I began to think that — perhaps I was wrong all along. What else could possibly put me in such a position? Yes, as gods we have had conflicts across timelines, some more grandiose than others, but to know that Maelgwyn was involved too…”

Samot said nothing, and Samothes allowed the silence to hang between them for a long moment. Slowly, Samot exhaled and gazed at the sword in his hands, turned it over slowly in his fingers. “Tell me… tell me how it works.”

“It is… a way to free the soul of a god from the flesh. When you slew Severea as a shadow, you captured her name — the undiluted essence of her power. And when she was freed, she created countless new animals for the world from her joy and love. This sword... would do something similar to me. It would scatter my divinity into Hieron and use my power to generate new… new materiality, as Samol would say. The Heat and the Dark would be pushed back, filled.” Samothes smiled, and took Samot’s hand gently in his own. “That new matter would be no different from any other. Just as beautiful, and just as beloved. You are proof.”

Samot gripped Samothes’ hand tight. “How cruel you are, to speak to me so sweetly now.”

“I know. I hope you can forgive me.”

“When Samol gave me flesh… when he made me material. It may have harmed him.”

“I don’t fully understand the reasons, or even know if it’s true, but Samol has perhaps stretched himself too thin. I would be giving up my living form instead. The sword — this sword — must be the catalyst. I’ve designed it carefully.” He pulled up Samot’s arm that was holding the sword, and pricked himself upon the tip of the blade. Samot watched a drop of blood form on Samothes’ finger and turn a shimmering molten gold in color before falling, forming a small bright fleck on the stone floor of the forge. “I am certain it will work.”

Samot inclined his head, a small and pained nod.

“Will you kill me?” Samothes asked. “I would do it myself, but…”

“No. It's only right that I be the one.” Samot almost laughed — how absurd this situation was. A thing that could only occur between gods. He looked up at Samothes, whose expression was plain and unguarded, and he cupped his husband's face in his free hand, and brushed his fingers through Samothes’ beard. It was slightly unkempt, Samothes having neglected grooming in his fervor to finish his work before Samot arrived. Samothes smiled, leaning into the touch.

“But not yet,” Samot said, brushing his thumb along Samothes’ lips.

“Not yet?”

“My love, let's have one more night together. They're dancing upstairs, are they not?”

 

* * *

 

“Samothes will be here any… second…” Primo trailed off, nearly dropping his microphone as the ballroom doors opened to reveal Samothes and Samot together, hand in hand. Samothes had changed from his work clothes into something a little dressier, a long tunic with a high collar and embroidery on the hems. He gazed at Samot with a fondness in his eyes that Primo had not seen in many years.

The whole crowd went silent, and parted to allow them to take center stage.

“How long it’s been,” Samothes said, Samot’s fingers intertwined with his own as they began to dance. It was so familiar. Had they danced together hundreds, thousands of times in their lives? In this very room, on this very floor, on High Sun Day?

“How long it’s been,” Samot agreed. He knew the crowd was agitated, but he looked only at Samothes as they circled each other. There were strands of silver in his dark hair, and laugh lines around his mouth. Samot hadn’t been around to see Samothes change in these small ways, and there was so little time left now.

They stole away upstairs quickly after the dance to avoid questions from friends and family (Primo could only stammer in confusion when Samothes hugged him and thanked him for everything he’d done). Samot’s guest bedroom laid unused, and there they embraced each other with the fervor of lovers seeing each other for the first time in a long time, and also for the last time. Samot kissed his husband hungrily, over and over, wishing he could show Samothes a decade of longing just through his lips, their joined mouths.

Samothes trailed his hands over Samot’s skin, his heated touch so familiar, so warm. They settled into each other with the knowledge of lovers who had known each other for an eternity. Samot’s body ached in old ways, longing for the ways that Samothes fulfilled him where no one else could, or ever would again. They held each other bittersweet that night — but how bitter, and how sweet it was.

 

* * *

 

And in the morning, again, they went to the forge. The golden sword still laid on the anvil where they had left it, and Samothes picked it up wordlessly, offering it hilt first for Samot to take. A small, sad smile creased his lips.

Samot took the sword and stepped forward to kiss his husband, hoping the action would mask how hard he was shaking, and all in a single action he pushed the sword forward into Samothes’ chest. Samothes’ breath hitched as the blade broke skin, and he grabbed Samot's wrist to steady him so he could drive the blade true. Metal and magic pierced Samothes’ heart - it was all by design, all by choice, and he had spent a long time preparing for it, but in that moment he knew he would never hold Samot again, and the strength left him all at once.

“I love you,” Samothes said, trembling as Samot slid the sword back out. Blood blossomed freely from the wound, but whatever divine magic infused the blade had turned it into something more than just blood. It was like molten gold, and shone with a brilliant light as it dripped down the front of Samothes’ chest, staining both their clothes.

“I know. I know,” Samot said, catching Samothes as he slumped forward, and lowering both of them onto the floor of the forge. He held Samothes in his lap, stroking his face and hair, and trying to hold back the unbearable urge to cry. “I know, my love, I know. Oh, my love, if only either of us loved the other more than we love Hieron.”

Samothes laughed weakly, reaching a hand up, trembling, wanting to wipe the tears away from Samot’s face. Samot caught his wrist and kissed his palm, over and over. Samothes would die, and Hieron would be safe. What a terrible thing that was, that Samot had a mere day ago longed for to be true.

“I won’t leave you, not really,” Samothes murmured. “I’ll be all around you…”

“Quiet, my love… It will be over soon.”

Samothes smiled at him, hazy-eyed. How cruel it was, Samot thought. How he loved this man, who he would never be able to hold again. Samothes’ breathing slowed and his eyes fluttered shut. His molten blood stayed liquid, golden, on the ground. Samot set him down gently and walked over to the anvil of the forge, where Samothes’ tools laid in familiar disarray — he almost laughed as he thought of all the times he had vainly attempted to get Samothes to keep a better-organized workspace. The hammer still laid on the anvil, though, and the sword — the sword was still in his hand, and Samot realized only now that he was still clutching it, white-knuckled, hard enough for the patterns on the hilt to blister his palm. He threw it down on the forge now, where it clattered against the steel and speckled golden blood over the surface of the metal. Some unknown impulse compelled him to pick up the hammer, and he struck the unheated blade with it now.

Samot gasped as peonies sprang up unbidden from where the blood pooled under the blade, and he turned to see that Samothes’ body, still laid peacefully on the floor of the forge, now budded all over with shoots and grass and leaves. Samot struck the hammer again, and the shoots bloomed into a riotous array of flowers, and fresh tears welled in his eyes as he realized that the flowers growing out of Samothes’ chest were the same kind they would grow in their garden, in their house in the woods.

“Even in death,” Samot said, returning to Samothes’ body to pluck a peony from his chest. “Even in death you are sentimental…” He brought the flower to his nose and breathed its fragrant aroma. It smelled as a peony should, but it felt like Samothes’ love — the sun heating his skin as he trimmed the rose bushes in the garden, the way Samothes would kiss his exposed shoulders, his deep-throated laugh…

The volcano began to rumble, and Samot recognized the beginnings of reconfiguration. He pressed a final kiss to Samothes’ lips, and left with the peony still cupped in his hand.

 

* * *

 

Days and months passed. In those first frantic minutes after Samot left the forge, the city of Marielda had rearranged itself so that Samothes would have a tomb in the middle of the city, buildings and structures moving aside to make room for a tall opalescent tower, too narrow to hold more than a few visitors at a time. Samot climbed those stairs with Maelgwyn days after it formed, and found Samothes’ body nestled peacefully in its tomb — a garden of his own haphazard creation, the gash in his chest ringed with peonies, and a smile on his face. There was no life in that body, but they set down a few things at his feet nonetheless — his hammer, a few books, an empty and freshly bound book for notes, a goblet of wine. The whole tower was overgrown with plants, vines climbing down the sides as if the white pillars were trellises.

The plants were of Samothes, yes, but Samot could feel that his life force filled the world in other ways as well, seeping into the air in the weeks and months that followed — the river of lava in Marielda stilled and one day it ran full and clear with fresh water into the sea. Places where the Heat and the Dark had seeped into Hieron disappeared, slowly filling with flowers or grass or trees or even deposits of iron, or once a spring of wine, making Samot laugh in surprise when his scouts came back to report on it. And slowly, slowly — Samol began to heal.

“Just couldn’t let an old man die, huh. What did I ever do to get such dutiful sons?” Samol said, showing Samot that his limp had cleared up. He sighed, and gave Samot a smile, but one that was deep with melancholy. “I wish I could see the two of you together again, and happy…”

“Father—”

“No, it’s alright. I have to accept the choices he made.” Samol stood up and stretched, and then began to bustle around the kitchen of his little house. “What do you want to eat, boy?” he asked, even though he was already taking out the ingredients for Samot’s favorite food without receiving an answer. “And where’s Maelgwyn?”

“He’s off researching some of the new formations with the mages — well, Charter Castille, specifically.”

Samol made a whistling noise at that. “Well, well, well. I suspect this old man will have some news to look forward to soon.”

Samot laughed, pulling up a chair to the counter. “He’s so young… Just let him live for now.”

“What, was I implying I wouldn’t?”

They both laughed. Samot sat down and gazed out the window into Samol’s garden, which bloomed with flowers both new and old, coming in again after a difficult winter. Samol hummed as he cooked and his music mixed with the songs of the birds outside and the clatter of pots on the stove. The sun was shining bright through the trees, as it had every day for time immemorial, and his skin tingled with warmth where it fell upon him.

There would be a sorrow that lived in him forever, Samot knew, but there was also love, and for the first time the promise of a future didn’t seem so tenuous.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in january 2017 and finally finished it... a tiny bit of catharsis for the marielda ending that could have been. find me on twitter [@imperialhare](http://twitter.com/imperialhare) where I never shut up about samsam


End file.
